Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Saturday, 29 August issued a sharp warning to Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, cautioning him against taking punitive action against more than three lakh state government employees who staged a mass casual leave on 27 August over pending dearness allowance arrears. Warring told reporters in Chandigarh that any such move could prove to be Mann's political undoing.

Warring's Warning to Mann

'You cannot intimidate and bully them using the threats of action,' Warring said, directly challenging the Chief Minister's authority. 'It will have far-reaching consequences for the Chief Minister which he must never have imagined,' he asserted, adding that the protest was a 'democratic right of the employees as long as they were doing it lawfully.' He warned that acting against the striking workers might 'well prove to be his last day as the Chief Minister.'

Employees Approach Governor Over CM's Absence

In a parallel development, the employees' Sanjha Mulazam Manch submitted a representation to Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria, seeking action against Chief Minister Mann for failing to attend a scheduled meeting with striking workers on 27 August. The front demanded that one day's salary of the Chief Minister be deducted for his absence, accusing him of 'negligence towards official responsibilities, administrative arbitrariness and wasteful expenditure of public funds.' The unions argued that 'if rules and discipline apply to employees at the lower levels, those occupying the highest positions in the government cannot be exempt from them.'

Scale of the Maha Hartal

The 'Maha Hartal' on 27 August saw employees from almost all departments, boards, and corporations participate, with nearly four lakh pensioners joining them. Government hospitals, dispensaries, and educational institutes were among the affected services. Markets, private establishments, private and public transport buses, and emergency services, however, remained operational and were exempted from the shutdown.

The Dearness Allowance Dispute

At the heart of the standoff is a dearness allowance backlog that employee unions put at ₹20,161 crore. Of this, ₹6,000 crore has been pending since 2021 — the year the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in Punjab — while ₹14,161 crore was outstanding from before that. Employees are currently receiving dearness allowance at 42 per cent of basic pay, against their claim of 58 per cent.

High Court Had Already Stepped In

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had, on 3 August, directed the state government to clear pending dearness allowance arrears within 15 days. The court also restrained the state from undertaking large-scale advertisement campaigns until dues were paid. 'Till all such dues are cleared, the state of Punjab shall not resort to any unproductive expenditures such as large-scale advertising campaigns in print or social media as these expenses cannot justify the denial of dues admissible to state employees,' the court had stated. With the government yet to fully comply, the political and legal pressure on the Mann administration is mounting on multiple fronts.